


Family and Genus

by orphan_account



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Prison, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, No beta we die like mne, References to Ancient Greek Religion & Lore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-27
Updated: 2021-01-27
Packaged: 2021-03-13 04:08:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29022486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Life starts and ends in the same way -- with Tommy, in this obsidian cell, with these too big thoughts, left to rot alone.Or: Tubbo dies, and Tommy gets hopeful (and also sent to prison).
Relationships: Toby Smith | Tubbo & TommyInnit
Comments: 12
Kudos: 150





	Family and Genus

**Author's Note:**

> I did not mean to write this, it just came out of me because it was the perfect opportunity to project my own doubts and emotions onto characters that do not exist. 
> 
> Takes place in an alternate universe after the Disc Confrontation goes down badly, because. Why not?

When Tommy woke up, the prison cell was cold and so was he. 

Logistically, it didn’t make sense. The entire place was cast in lava, and it warmed the obsidian under his feet and over his head to an unbearable degree. A few times before, he had tried to make a break for the outside world. But Tommy had been hurt by this lava, scalded by this lava, scorched by this lava. He was a thousand open wounds festering in the crackling fire, burning for nobody to witness. The pain had been agonizing until the heat had consumed him inside out. 

Today was different, though. He had woken up silent and empty. Something had happened; something was going to happen. Time was hard to tell in the Vault. 

The first few days were probably the worst. At first he had tried to escape when the sky started crying orange. When that didn’t work, he threw himself at the walls over and over for hours. It wasn’t until fatigue set in and his hands grew numb from punching that he stopped to rest, wiping his bloodied knuckles onto his shirt. Breathing harshly, he took a proper look around the cell: that block of water in the corner, that glowstone above the chest, that lectern for the book and quills, that cauldron next to the clock hanging on the wall, those netherite blocks embedded in the floor. What could he use to break free? 

He punched the lectern and the glowstone to no avail. Disheartened, he broke the item frame instead. Tommy lay on the ground, exhausted from exertion. He looked at this disparate collection of tools in his inventory: book and quill, item frame, clock. He couldn’t craft shit from shit. In a fit of rage, he pitched the clock into fire and watched the silhouette sink down. 

For a brief moment, Tommy felt the vaguest feeling of panic. Why did he do that? He had so few things in his possession already, and he needed everything he was given. He desperately ran to the entrance of his cell, sticking his arms into molten fire and waving it around. _Please_ , Tommy begged, and his ruined hands caught on to the feel of something solid. He pulled out his arms, where a heap of burning metal lay cradled in his palms. His brain short-circuited in pain as he ran to the water, but there was nothing left to salvage. The clock was completely unrecognizable, completely collapsed in on itself. 

In the end, the decision had almost been simple. It hurt to try so hard, and Tommy had tried so, so hard. There was nothing to do and nowhere to go. So he gave up. 

He had just lost everything else; what was a little bit more? Things weren’t permanent, bonds weren’t permanent, and people certainly weren’t permanent. Fuck, Tommy should know this. He knew this. It was just that in his best moments, he had forgotten that happiness didn’t last.

Something that Tommy had learned was this: he hadn’t realized that his pain wasn’t true until he experienced what a real sacrifice felt like. And it felt a lot like being forced to live after watching his best friend die. 

The Greeks loved myths with unhappy endings. Despair was relatable and inescapable, and Tommy understood the reason why tragedy resonated with generations of people who lived to learn of those stories. Life was complicated and hard and messy. Too often, it felt like nothing would turn out alright; too often, it didn’t. Poor Oedipus Tyrannus, who was prophesied to kill his father Laios and marry his mother Iocaste. Who lived to fulfill a punishment for the sins of another man. Who was doomed from the beginning by a fate he neither chose nor wanted. Poor Oedipus Tyrannus, who, in trying to escape his fate, sealed himself instead. It was the mark of tragedy: that in the end, despite trying, despite everything, nothing mattered. 

Was this Tommy’s fate, then? Was it that he was destined to exile, destined to lose, and destined to suffer? Was he supposed to rot forever, in a prison that kept him safe and alive? It seemed so unfair, that he was the one who lived. What was he supposed to do now that his better half was gone?

Tommy was hollow after that, sitting on the floor with his back against the corner until the heat radiating from the blocks forced him into another position. He yelled, cried, and stared blankly into the lava. Beyond the crackling and popping sounds of the particles, though, there was no response. 

Naturally, no one had visited him. Beyond the fact that plenty of people hadn’t visited him during his exile before, Tommy felt certain that even if someone tried to do so now, Dream would be there to stop them. It was probably some mind game, to make Tommy feel isolated and alone and repentant. To break him down before Dream could build him up again in the way that Dream alone wanted. 

The part that Tommy hated was that he could feel it was working. After all, how could he not feel isolated when he was imprisoned in a cell in the middle of an obsidian vault? How could he not feel alone when there was no one to keep him company besides the lava surrounding him? How could he not feel repentant when all he could do was think? 

So passed every day in a miserable drag. Tommy sat and thought, which was pretty much what he believed his own hell would look like if -- when? -- he died. 

Which was why today was different. Because when he sat down against the wall, it was cold. Or, at least, cooler than usual.

Alarmed, Tommy looked up. “What the-- what the fuck?” Tommy felt the wall again. There was definitely warmth, but it wasn’t the normal seeping heat that scorched his bones. It felt like the lava that was supposed to be behind the wall wasn’t there anymore. 

Scrambling upward, Tommy watched as the lava encasing the entrance of the cell gradually receded to floor level. Sam and Dream were on the other side of the gap of lava, staring back at him. Confusion, then disbelief, then righteous anger. Tommy didn’t care how dead inside he was. He still wanted to punch that green prick in the face. 

“Stand back!” Sam yelled, and Tommy stumbled back in fascination as a stone brick bridge started moving towards the cell. Dream perched precariously on, moving as the bridge pushed itself forward. As it approached, the netherite blocks on the floor pushed up, blocking Tommy from Dream and the bridge in all but view. 

Tommy became a silent, glaring hostility as the bridge retreated and as the lava surrounded the cell again. “Hello, Tommy,” Dream said, and for the first time in days Tommy felt. Furious anger, rising in him faster, brighter, and hotter than molten rage. Rushing in his ears as his blood boiled, a white noise ringing in his head. Burning him from the inside out, warming the cooling obsidian floor into a fire lit underneath his feet.

In the Dream SMP, there were murderers, and then there were _murderers_. Everyone to an extent was a murderer, but what did death count when it held no weight, no repercussion? The only people who had died permanently on the server were Schlatt, who passed because of his own declining health problems; Wilbur, who went of his own volition and on his own terms; and…

Case in point: Dream was a _murderer_. The netherite blocks retreated down, and Tommy socked that bastard in the face. 

“I’m not an idiot, Tommy.” 

Tommy huffed and paced behind the netherite blocks. “Oh, big green man says he’s not an idiot, so he must not be! Why don’t you come and fight me, bitch?”

“You hit me last time!” Dream yelled indignantly. “Do you think I like to hurt myself for no good reason?”

“You little piss baby, it’s not my fault you went down in one punch.”

Dream’s mask showed no emotion, but his muscles were tense under that hideous green sweatshirt. Aliens could probably spot that sweatshirt from outer space; it was the lighthouse that could have saved the Titanic. Tommy wanted to gouge his eyes out just looking at it. “I was on half a heart.”

Logically, Tommy knew that Dream wasn’t lying. He had to have been low on health because there was no universe where a weak, teenaged Tommy had a chance of decking a powerhouse like Dream with one hit. But Tommy had been alone for days now, and in that time he had a lot of time to think. Especially about what he wanted to do to Dream.

“Is that some sort of justification? Dream, you’ve been justifying a lot of things to yourself lately.” 

“Look, Tommy,” Dream began. “I didn’t come here to fight you. I just wanted to visit you and… see how you were doing. You’re important to me, and that’s why I’m here.”

“Am I important to you as a person, or am I important because you can use me?”

Dream shrugged. “See it what you will, Tommy. I’m your friend, and that’s why I’m here.”

Tommy had seen bullshit in his life, but this was beyond absurd. “After all this time, and you’re my friend? Did you think you could waltz into the cell that you placed me in, did you think you could kill my best friend, did you think at all? Did you think you could do all that, and at the end of the day I would call you my friend?”

“Tommy, just because you don’t see me as a friend doesn’t mean I don’t see you as my friend. I just want you to be safe.” Dream loosened a little, head tilting up to look down at Tommy. “Did you think Tubbo was keeping you safe, was a good friend? He exiled you, Tommy. He never visited you once in Logstedshire. I, on the other hand, helped you. I came to see you every day. Isn’t that friendship?”

“That’s manipulation, dickhead,” Tommy spit at Dream. “Like you tried to do when I was exiled, like you’re trying to do right now. And don’t you fucking dare say his name.”

Dream tilted his head. “Tubbo? Are you angry because I said Tubbo’s name?”

Tommy sputtered. “No-- yes-- I-- I’m angry because you have the audacity to come in here and try to replace my best friend with _yourself_!” 

“I’m not trying to replace anyone,” Dream placated. “I just wanted to see how you’re doing. That’s not replacing, is it? You can’t replace someone’s actions when it never happened.” 

Here was a truth about Dream that Tommy had realized a while ago: Dream could be cruel, but that didn’t mean he was always wrong. A broken clock was still right twice a day, or something like that. Which is why what he said hurt. It stuck inside the mind, wriggled its way in to sow distrust. 

But that was the thing about Dream, too. He took the small picture and painted it in the light that he wanted people to see it in. It was gaslighting, pure and simple. But even knowing didn’t stop it from hurting. 

Tommy knew what to do. 

To Sam: “Guard? Guard?! Dream wants to go.” Then, to Dream: “I’m not talking to you. I don’t talk to pussies.”

Dream was becoming something of a problem. See, Tommy wasn’t usually one to break his word, and he certainly wasn’t one to lie without good reason. When he did, he did it with purpose and a little guilty resolve. But there was no outstanding reason now as to why he should lie. After all, there was nothing in his cell but prison supplies, which didn’t truly belong to him -- it was the prison’s property, left for Tommy to use while he stayed -- and himself. If he didn’t respect his own word, what did he have left? A singular brain cell?

The problem was that Dream was the opposite, loyal to no one but his own ideals. The same could be said about a lot of people on the server, Tommy knew. Technoblade was loyal to nothing but his anarchist, non-hierarchical beliefs and interacted with no one but the people who either agreed with his agenda or were not going to stop him. Wilbur had been loyal to nothing but his pursuit of power, often going to great self-destructive lengths to keep what he deemed ‘his.’ Tommy, to an extent, was the same: the entire Disc Saga was essentially a fight over possession, and Tommy knew that he had definitely screwed over people he cared about to reclaim what was once his. In fact, he had done more than simply fucking up -- Tommy had led his best friend straight to his final death. 

So before Dream left that first time, leaving the shortest conversation known to man, when he smirked and said, “I’ll see you tomorrow, Tommy,” Tommy had half a mind not to believe him. Dream changed loyalties every once a week and shifted power on the server twice a day. Any promise he made was temporary at best and vacuous at worst. 

But then Dream came the next day, and the day after that, and the day after that. And every time Dream left he said, “I’ll see you tomorrow, Tommy,” before Sam took him away. Tommy didn’t know what to think anymore. He refused to speak to Dream every time he came around because he had promised the both of him he wouldn’t. So he didn’t. 

This was their routine: Dream would greet Tommy, and Tommy would stare sullenly back at him. Dream would chatter uselessly about events that had happened on the server, updating Tommy on new developments. Ranboo’s new enderman powers, Technoblade’s Syndicate, the Badland’s Eggpire. Tommy closed his eyes and imagined his friends(?) dicking around the Greater SMP without him. 

Dream would talk for an hour, half of the time trying to bait Tommy into speaking back. But then an hour would pass, and Sam would yell, “Visiting hours are over!” Then Dream would leave, and Tommy would be so, so alone. In those hours between visits, Tommy would let the dark heat of the cell smother him, cover him, kill him. Any empty hopefulness that was within was overrun by that oppressive fire.

Was pain better than nothing? No, no, surely not, surely it wasn’t. Tommy would rather spend all of eschaton feeling nothing rather than being eternally trapped in whatever hellfire was awaiting him. That didn’t stop him from wanting, though. He desperately wanted someone, but the one person who would visit Tommy he had pushed away and for good reason. It didn’t matter, though -- Dream wasn’t the person that he desperately needed to speak to. 

Wasn’t that part of the point of his sentence, to be given too much time to feel and too much time to think? 

Poor Patroclus, who acted as counsel to his close friend and doomed brother Achilles during the Trojan War. Who grew up with Achilles, fought for Achilles, died for Achilles. Who became the best of the Achaeans only after his sacrifice. And poor Achilles, who was prophesied to live gloriously but only briefly. Who thought himself to be practically invincible until Patroclus was slain in battle. Who in his grief and rage sought revenge against and killed Patroclus’ murderer, only to be pierced in his heel by an arrow guided by a god. Poor, sweet Achilles and Patroclus, who gave up their lives for each other. It was the mark of tragedy: that in the end, despite sacrifice, despite death, the tides of war remained unchanged.

Was Tommy grieving, or was he simply pitying himself? Mourning for a friend who had died and would never come back, or feeling guilty because Tommy was the one who had led him on a suicide quest? 

There was nothing but a glut of time in that cell of his, and hearing about the rest of the SMP had him feeling sad and mopey and shit. He had nothing but questions these days and no answers to give himself. 

Dream was visiting, and Tommy was not paying attention. Book open in his lap, quill in his hand, Tommy was looked up occasionally to look at Dream. The glow of lava illuminated Dream’s hair, brightening his already too bright sweatshirt and casting a faint aura of light around him. When he was standing there, he looked more like an apparition than real. 

So Tommy was partially attempting to sketch from memory the Mexican coat of arms -- was the golden eagle facing left or right, and which leg was clutching the rattlesnake again? -- and definitely zoned out when he heard Dream say, “We’re reviving Wilbur from the dead later.”

“Huh? What?” Tommy’s head jerked up reflexively. 

For a moment, he considered ignoring the bomb that Dream had just dropped, but. Fuck it. There were some things he had to give up, and self-respect was one of them. Looked like he only had his one remaining brain cell to keep him company now. 

“Excuse me?” 

Dream grinned triumphantly. “Sorry, your highness, did you need me to repeat that again? Did you not hear me because you were talking so loudly above me?” He cleared his throat and gave the shittiest British accent that Tommy had ever heard. “We’re reviving Wilbur from the dead later. Now, let me pour the tea and get the crumpets for you, my majesty--”

Tommy was shaking all over. This was the best idea he had heard of; this was the worst idea he heard of. He stilled unnaturally, then started trembling again. The quill fell out of his hands and clattered noisily on the floor. As Dream spoke, Tommy watched as ink ran down the cracks of the obsidian and stained the outsoles of his shoes. Angry, hot tears were building up behind his eyes. He ached all over. 

“Wilbur,” Tommy finally interrupted. Mercifully, Dream fell silent.

“Yes, Wilbur,” Dream repeated cautiously. 

Impossibly, Tommy could feel himself heating up more. He stood up abruptly and closed his eyes, pressing the heels of his hands into his sockets so hard he saw stars. Tommy had been alone in this cell for so long, wondering what he could have done to have changed things. Wondering what he could still do to change things. He was floating unmoored, sinking below the floor and drifting aimlessly in that thick, suffocating magma. 

Had Tommy been locked for so long that now even Dream could see his open, festering wounds, bleeding for everyone to witness? Was he waiting for someone to tell him it was going to be okay? For someone to tell him that one day he would be free of the prison, of his conscience?

“How?” Tommy finally choked out, afraid of the thousand other things he was going to voice if he said more. 

Dream paused, debating. Finally, he said, “Schlatt gave me a book that had instructions for bringing people back to life. And Phil asked me for my help. If I could bring Ghostbur back to life. I was bored, so I said yes.”

Painfully, hesitantly, Tommy thought: _Phil_. Abruptly, comically, Tommy thought: _Normal Tuesday night for Shia LeBeouf._ His eyes drifted over to the lectern, and something lit up in his brain.

“Because you were bored?” Tommy dropped his arms and blinked the spots out of his eyes. “Dream, you hated Wilbur. L’Manberg’s quest for independence basically started the SMP’s evolution into-- into some glorified faction server. So why did you agree? Why are you doing this?”

Dream shrugged, amused. “I wasn’t lying, Tommy. I’m bored. You joining my SMP gave it life, made it interesting. But now that you’re in here, it’s starting to get boring again. So I thought it would be interesting if I said yes.”

“If you’re so bored, you should let me out of here.”

Dream’s eyebrows rose over his mask. “No, I don’t think I will. Maybe, if you’re good. I’ll think about it.”

Damn. Well, Tommy had to try at least once. 

“So, you’ve been, what,” Tommy floundered. “You’ve been holding onto Schlatt’s book in your ender chest this entire time? Waiting for something like this to just happen?”

“No,” Dream admitted. “I didn’t think I was going to have to use it, so I put it in a chest in my house. I had to travel so far to get it, and now I have to travel back to store it. It’s literally so much work.”

“Okay,” Tommy said warily. He was having the weirdest conversation of his life. He was actually being civil to Dream. “So you’re just doing this for Phil? For free?”

Dream hummed, then leaned over a little. “Well, it’s Phil, Fundy, Ranboo, and a few others. And why not? I can do something nice for my friends. I can do things pro bono.”

“Is that Latin for ‘dickhead,’ dickhead?” So much for being civil, then. 

Dream wheezed in unexpected laughter. “Glad you’re back, Tommy.”

“Huh? What the fuck does that mean?” Tommy opened and closed his mouth, giving Dream a strange look. “I’ve always been here, bitch.”

The hardest part of being alone was boredom. When there were other people around, it was easy for Tommy to lose himself. That was the fun part, actually -- not being left alone with these thoughts that were too big to keep. 

Poor Niobe, whose seven daughters and seven sons were slaughtered mercilessly by Leto’s twins Artemis and Apollo. Who made a foolish and hubristic statement about her prodigious family and fortune. Who watched as her children died, begging for forgiveness as Apollo released his arrow into her last son. Who was frozen to stone on Mount Sipylus, forced to weep forever for the lost Niobids. Poor Niobe, whose sorrow for her dead children, not pride, was immortalized. Poor, sweet Niobe, who loved her children so much that it killed them. It was the mark of tragedy: that in the end, despite how much it meant, despite trying to right wrongs, eternal apology and remorse could not make up for a single moment of hubris. 

Wasn’t Tommy just as bad as Dream or anyone else on the server? The point of forgiveness was to let go. Apologies were fluff padding if no one made a deliberate decision to release their resentment regardless of whether or not it was deserved. It didn’t mean that bad decisions would be forgotten or excused. It just meant moving on. 

So that was the problem with the SMP: everyone carried grudges, and no one forgave. These people were built on hurt, this festering hurt, that could not be taken away. And they used it against each other, in words wrapped with barbed wire. Weaponized pain, but pain nonetheless. They were all Niobe, crying over the eternal pain of the past. Unable to break free and see a future when things already felt so set in stone. 

Tommy lay in wait the next few days for updates about Wilbur. Dream was frustratingly vague: 

“Wilbur’s alive, and he’s living in Snowchester.”

“No, I haven’t seen Wilbur, he hasn’t been leaving his house.”

“Tommy, I don’t know what more you want. Wilbur hasn’t been talking to anyone except Technoblade and Phil, and I don’t talk to The Syndicate any more than I have to.”

Tommy threw his hands in the air in frustration. “Okay, fine. How was the ritual? What was that like?”

“I dunno?” Dream shifted his weight from his right leg to his left, and then back again. “It was weird. Less like revival and more like tying people’s lives together. Eye for an eye or something? Life for a life? Not too sure.”

Tommy paused. “Wait. So you’re telling me that you weren’t there for the ritual? Are you serious?”

“No, I was. I was there.” Dream was definitely moving more suspiciously now. “Burned me when I tried to open it, though. To revive Ghostbur? Phil did it instead, said something about impure intentions.”

“Wow,” drawled Tommy. “Dream has impure intentions? Who were you thinking about? You better not say Gogy, I bet you’re going to say Gogy. Were you having impure thoughts about Gogy, Dream? During Wilbur’s resurrection, really?”

“Okay,” Dream announced, craning up to look at the ceiling. “Guard? Do I have permission to hit prisoners? Guard!” 

Tommy raised an eyebrow. “Oh, sorry, you were having impure thoughts about Awesamdude? That’s kinda weirdchamp, Dream, not gonna lie. I never have impure thoughts because the only person on my mind is the Queen, she is the only lady in my life and the only woman I ever think about.”

Dream ignored him. “I am not going to be bullied by my friends, I am not going to be bullied by my friends, I am not going to be bullied by my friends.” 

“Then hit me, bitch, hit me!” Tommy’s lips drew back over his teeth, wide and daring and goading. He teetered on the unhinged side of danger; he smiled like someone with nothing left to lose. Everything he was saying was a bit; everything he was saying was not a joke. 

“Okay, Tommy,” Dream threatened teasingly, fists raised. “Maybe I will!”

Tommy screamed in mock terror. “No! Assault! Guard, help! I’m being assaulted! The visitor is assaulting a minor! Lock him up, he’s committing crimes against children!”

“Come here, Tommy!”

“Guards, please! Help me! Why is this prison so shit?”

“Did you call the prison ‘shit’ in front of its commissioner? Tommy, I’m going to put you and your stupid broken clock in solitary!”

“You idiot, Dream, this is solitary!” 

An exasperated sigh from the other side of the lava. “Visitor, I’m going to bring you back now. Stand in the water, please.”

“Think of the kids!” Tommy yelled as Dream disappeared. In the dim light of the obsidian cell, the residual particles of the splash potion of harming almost looked purple. 

A minute passed. 

Tommy wiped the smile off his face and got to work. 

For all the talk that he had about attachment, Dream was not free from his own vices. 

Funnily enough, it went like this: when Dream had brought them down to his secret base, when Dream had said he had stripped himself of all leverage, Tommy took one look around him. Looked at Beckerson on the wall, looked at Dream’s Nightmare armor and weapon set, looked at the discs on the glossy gold tiling. Caught his own reflection in that floor, disheveled and hopeful and disgusted and terrified. Thought about the items in Dream’s inventory, about the items that might have been in Dream’s ender chest. Didn’t believe that Dream had no home, no connections. That he was completely floating, untethered, in empty space. 

In the end, it wasn’t even Tommy who had reached for those discs. It was-- it was--

As Tommy used his body as a shield, it was someone else who scooped the discs from the item frames on the floor. It was someone else who popped open the lid and deposited them inside their ender chest. It was someone else who gave a sad smile as Tommy screamed in fury and horror, unable to block Dream from swinging the sword downwards. 

The problem was that no matter how understandable Dream’s actions were, it didn’t mean that he was right. Justification was fickle -- all it revealed was prioritization and personal value systems. On a deep level, Dream had to have realized that what he did was wrong. Planning to steal prized possessions for power, to imprison people for potential problems they might cause. To murder someone else for leverage, to feel no remorse for doing so. These actions were wrong. 

The problem was that Dream believed his rationale was justified. But no matter how brilliant or strong or clever he was, the motivation for his actions came from a very uncomplicated place: he wanted power. He wanted to be the one controlling, not the one controlled. He wanted to rule the world. 

That was the end of the story. Mellohi and Cat lay at the bottom of an ender chest, collecting dust. No one had won possession over the discs -- after all, the only person who could access it was gone forever. 

Tommy was escorted to hell as a body lay behind him, dead for an empty cause and cooling in an empty room.

Tommy punched the lectern. Over and over, until the skin of his knuckles split. 

Here was the thing: Tommy was not an idiot. The people on the SMP, they were people he had interacted with for a long time. They were his friends. He knew the bad in them. Knew that Phil played favorites, that Fundy had a validation problem, that Ranboo was amnestic. But he also knew the good. That, at their core, they were loyal people who were pushed to do terrible things because of their bad positions. 

It didn’t mean that he condoned their actions, though. Just that he understood. 

He continued punching, angry and afraid. 

Evil was easy because it felt justified. It was easy to say, “what I did was okay. You understand, right? I was so, so scared that I had to be mean.” 

But being hurtful was also banal. Unoriginal. Uncomplicated. It meant wanting to be so unafraid of getting hurt that you hurt other people right back, just to be the one to do it first. And that was easy to recognize and easy to empathize with -- those same selfish vices were within us all. 

Consciously bad decisions were just products of bad impulses. Sometimes these impulses were understandable; sometimes they weren’t. 

Maybe if he hit the lectern a little while longer, a little harder. Maybe, just maybe…

Tommy understood. Really, he did. It was easy to look at Wilbur, spiraling into his vices, and empathize with a man driven to the point of insanity. It was easy to look at Technoblade, pressured to kill his allies, and feel sorry that other people didn’t agree with him. It was easy to look at himself, desperately searching for his lost discs, and understand why he had gone so far to take back what was his. Being cruel was easy. However. 

Blood ran down Tommy’s arms, dripping on the floor. 

Trying to be good, now. It was hard. It was complex. It would be a thousand years before Tommy could get it right. But it was beautiful. 

The lectern broke. 

Disbelieving, Tommy stared at the item drop. Rotating in space, careless and free and drifting. Right there for Tommy to take. 

“Holy shit,” he whispered. “Holy shit!”

The edges of the lectern were hard and cool in his inventory. He stood still for a moment, searching for noise, before running to the edge of the cell. Set the lectern down on the block closest to the edge, waiting. Held himself with bated breath. Anticipating failure, and yet hoping for the best.

A minute passed, and then two. The lectern caught on fire. 

_Please_ , Tommy begged. His whole body was vibrating, shaking so hard that he felt like he was going to throw up. He closed his eyes and prayed. 

_I don’t care what it takes. Please, please work._ Over and over. 

Impossibly, when Tommy opened his eyes. The lectern was gone. Burnt to ash. But in its place. Purple particles radiated.

There was no way this worked. Yet. When Tommy reached his hand into the portal. No lava, just more heat. 

“What the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck--”

Tommy only had one chance. When he walked into that portal, Sam would notice the missing prisoner and immediately start a search. But what did he have in here, in an obsidian vault? He had no life, no belongings, no friends. 

That was the other thing, too. He knew the people on the SMP, he regarded them as friends. It was a mutual trust. He had their backs, and they had his. So when Dream had told Tommy, told Tommy that his friends had chosen to revive Wilbur, Tommy had imagined. Imagined a world where he had made the right choices, where he was carefree and happy. Where no one was hurting. Where his friends were his friends. 

In his mind, he played out the happy little lives of happy little people who had never felt anything less than joy. They would be the best versions of themselves. They would never forgive because they never did anything that needed forgiveness. They would follow all the rules and laws and probably even the Ten Commandments to boot. No one would die, and no one had to die. 

In the white space of his mind, ignorance was a way of life. If it made people happy, why not? 

Tommy just wanted what was best for his friends. He wanted them to be so happy with life that it hurt to see their smiles, wide and mid-laugh. So he tried to do what it took to have that image, tucked and worn out in his back pocket for constant review. It was like those narrative video games where you spent hours grinding gameplay to get the best ending. You cared so much for the shape of what could be that you just had to turn possibility into reality. 

So it had felt unforgivable, felt like flesh rotting away in the heat of a cell, when the person they chose to revive was Wilbur and not--

“Tubbo,” Tommy rasped. His hand was bruised and bleeding, open wounds stinging in the hot humid air of the cell. His arms were pockmarked with burn scars, still too fresh and too raw for sudden movements. He was running on practically no sleep. He had no food, no resources, nothing but himself and the clothes carried on his back. 

But that was the other thing: Tommy didn’t care. He didn’t care the odds of him surviving were practically zero. Let him bleed out, for all it mattered! He just couldn’t stand being locked up in that cell, forced to do nothing day in and day out. 

So he wouldn’t. 

Dream was constantly underestimating Tommy. But at this point, Tommy couldn’t give two fucks about what Dream thought. Because when you learned that your better half had gone, when you learned that there was a way to bring them back and you knew how to do it--

Tommy didn’t care searching for Dream’s home was going to take his entire life. He didn’t care if he was going to die in a minute, in a day, in a week. Things weren’t permanent, bonds weren’t permanent, and people certainly weren’t permanent. But wasn’t it worse to give up on temporary things just because you knew they wouldn’t last forever? In that jail cell, Tommy had no one but his own thoughts to comfort him. He recalled the good moments, the bad. When that fire had looked so tempting, he closed his eyes and simply remembered. 

And weren’t memories just temporary moments made lasting? You held onto the memories of who you loved the most, even when they passed. The legacy of what you left behind, as ephemeral as memories or as physical as objects, was what kept you alive beyond death. 

Where would he be without his thoughts? No matter how badly his own mind had tortured him, he couldn’t separate himself from it. 

If Tommy didn’t at least try, he would hate himself forever, right? Right?

Poor Orpheus, who tried the best he could to gain back the life of his newlywed wife Eurydice. Who used his talents to access the Underworld, where Persephone and Hades sat judgment. Who persuaded the two to let his wife live once more, as long as he would not turn around on his journey out of hell. Who looked back in those last few moments, banishing Eurydice’s shade forever. Poor, sweet Eurydice and Orpheus, who spent only brief moments of happiness together in the mortal realm; poor, sweet Eurydice and Orpheus, who could now only be reunited in death. It was the mark of tragedy: that in the end, despite how much you had, despite how much you were willing to give, love couldn’t save you. Love couldn’t save anybody.

And poor, sweet Tommy, for believing otherwise.

“Tubbo,” he repeated, and his mouth set itself in a grim line. “I’m coming for you.”

**Author's Note:**

> I don't actually think that the way I described is a feasible method of breaking out of Pandora's Vault. I just saw it on a post somewhere and ran with it because Tommy has to get out somehow. Right?
> 
> Also, this was meant to be a multi-chaptered work, but yours truly lost motivation halfway through writing the first chapter. You're welcome.


End file.
